Jean Sibelius; Olli Kortekangas - Kullervo; Migrations (Osmo Vänskä)

Information

Composer: Jean Sibelius; Olli Kortekangas (b. 1955)

• Sibelius - Kullervo, Op. 7
• Kortekangas - Migrations
• Sibelius - Finlandia, Op. 26 (with choir participation)

Lilli Paasikivi, mezzo-soprano

Tommi Hakala, baritone

YL Male Voice Choir

Minnesota Orchestra

Osmo Vänskä, conductor

Date: 2016

Label: BIS
https://bis.se/composer/sibelius-jean/sibelius-kullervo-kortekangas-migrations

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

No choir on the planet has as much experience or affinity with Kullervo as the YL Male Voice Choir and the ensemble proves as much here from the very first stanza of text in Sibelius’s Op 7: the annunciation of ‘Ku-ller-vo’, with its lightly rolled ‘r’, and the twisting diphthong and attacca ‘a’ of ‘poika’. The choir is bushy-tailed in ‘Kullervo and his Sister’ without sounding raucous – as good a litmus test as any – and clearly helped make this live performance in Minneapolis an event.

So what of the orchestra? I’d say Vänskä’s Minnesota Orchestra is even more lustrous now than it was pre-lockout, particularly in its string sections (notice the textures around 5'30" in ‘Kullervo’s Youth’). As always, articulation is the watchword with Vänskä and you hear it everywhere, perhaps best of all in the contrasting orchestrations that underlie that repeating opening vocal ‘Kullervo, Kalervon poika’. Vänskä knows what he wants to convey: a hopelessness from the start of ‘Kullervo’s Youth’ that completely eludes Colin Davis and others; a demonic quality in ‘Kullervo Goes to War’ that underlines the thematic link with Stravinsky’s Petrushka (never heard that before).

But ultimately, there’s something about this Kullervo that underwhelms. It might be the soloists: Lilli Paasikivi’s wonderful instrument sounds wayward and frequently sharp (she is no match for Paavo Järvi’s Randi Stene, a personal favourite); Tommi Hakala doesn’t bring the electrifying, hopeless brilliance to ‘Voi poloinen’ that Waltteri Torikka did for Sakari Oramo at the 2015 Proms (couldn’t Torikka have been given the chance to record it, given Hakala has before?). Oramo’s performance was gripping from the start (even on the BBC’s iPlayer) in a way that Vänskä’s isn’t. I am sure Vänskä will please those who view the piece more symphonically.

But what a joy it is to see this wonderful orchestra standing tall again – tall enough to commission a brand-new work to complement Kullervo, and for the same forces. But once more, care and thoughtfulness have paradoxically got in the way of the end result. Olli Kortekangas’s Migrations was written to mark 150 years since the start of modern migration from Finland to North America (much of it to Minnesota). But while Kortekangas sniffed out the perfect poet in Sheila Packa, a Minnesotan of Finnish ancestry, her borderline naff and soundbite-based texts haven’t pushed the composer into anything like Kullervo’s scale or impact. The piece feels far more stop-start (and short) than its sonic weight suggests it should.

The choral elements, for example, can sound lumbering and harmonically anaemic, as if the prescription of writing for male voices only has restricted Kortekangas rather than pushing him to greater invention. Sometimes you get the feeling there’s a fine piece lurking within some of the composer’s more fertile ideas (the motif that controls the second interlude, for example), but that this, frustratingly, isn’t it. The masterstroke – a sort of pining, twisting upwards on the concluding lines ‘of wings that rise and fall / the circle of migration / in each flight / music that we breathe’, to me a clear and telling refraction of the final pages of Sibelius’s Fifth – is too little, too late. The vocally underpowered Finlandia that follows certainly doesn’t compensate.

-- Andrew Mellor, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

MusicWeb International  RECORDING OF THE MONTH

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/sibeliuss-kullervo-and-finlandia-pairs-kortekangass-migrations/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/feb/23/sibelius-kullervo-etc-kortekangas-migrations-cd-review-vanska-minnesota-orchestra

https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/sibelius-%E2%80%A2-kortekangas-kullervo-migrations-minnesota-orchestra-yl-male-voice-choirosmo-vanska/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/sibelius-kullervo-mw0003417698

https://www.amazon.com/Sibelius-Kortekangas-Male-Voice-Choir/dp/B01NALY7O9

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jean Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish violinist and composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. His music contributed to the development of a feeling of national identity in Finland where he is now celebrated as the country's greatest composer. Sibelius is widely known for his seven symphonies, the violin concerto and the tone poems, especially Finlandia and the Karelia suite. Throughout his career, the composer found inspiration in nature and Nordic mythology. He almost completely stopped composing after 1920s and did not produce any large-scale works in his last thirty years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Sibelius

***

Olli Kortekangas (born 16 May 1955 in Turku) is a Finnish composer. He studied at the Sibelius Academy with Eero Hämeenniemi and Einojuhani Rautavaara, and in Berlin with Dieter Schnebel. Later he has held teaching positions at the Sibelius Academy and the National Theater Academy. Kortekangas has composed about 140 works covering a broad range, from choral works and instrumental miniatures to orchestral music and operas. He has received a number of awards, among them the Salzburg Opera Prize, the Special Prize of the Prix Italia Competition, and the prestigious Teosto Prize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olli_Kortekangas

https://ollikortekangas.com/

***

Osmo Vänskä (born 28 February 1953, Sääminki, Finland) is a Finnish conductor, clarinetist and composer. He was an orchestral clarinetist of the Turku Philharmonic (1971-1976) and Helsinki Philharmonic (1977-1982), and during this time, studied conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy. Vänskä was chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (1988-2008), the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (1993-1996), and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (1996-2002). He has been music director of the Minnesota Orchestra since 2003. Vänskä has recorded extensively for the BIS label.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmo_Vänskä

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!